


Wee Small Hours

by VivWiley



Category: Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: F/M, Season 2, post-ep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-14
Updated: 2013-04-14
Packaged: 2017-12-08 11:37:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/760901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VivWiley/pseuds/VivWiley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>4 am has never been his favorite time, Logan thinks about a very long night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wee Small Hours

**Author's Note:**

> A VivVille Joint. See End Credits
> 
>  ** _Disclaimer:_** The characters and situations of "Veronica Mars" belong to Rob Thomas, UPN, et al. No disrespect, infringement or profit is intended.  
>  Spoilers: Everything up to and including the Season 2 finale

Four in the morning had never been his favorite time. It usually meant that he'd been up drinking for far too long and was going to have a vicious hang-over when he woke up, or that he'd been asleep and the nightmares had woken him again. Good things rarely happened at this time.

The clock on the DVD player silently flickered from 4:03 to 4:04. 

Logan flexed the fingers of his right hand, feeling them brush against Veronica's ribs and ...he carefully did not allow himself to think of what was just above. The weight of her body across his arm had long since caused it to fall asleep. 

Looking down at her, he wondered what to do. He knew what he should do, but he didn't really feel like moving. The adrenaline rush of the night's events had worn off and he was left feeling battered and hurting. The lingering effects of the TASER shock that Beav- Cassidy had hit him with gnawed with insidious scratching along his nerves. All in all, he really didn't feel like moving.

But there she was, trusting him in what had to be her lowest point in a young life that already had seen its share of lows. And he wouldn't fail her again. He wouldn't let her wake up stiff and cramped on top of everything else she'd endured this endless night.

He gently tightened his hold on her and slowly stood. She stirred a little in his arms, and then settled against his chest. He drew a shaky breath and headed for her bedroom.

Her bed was unmade - an uncharacteristic sign of untidiness in the otherwise fastidiously organized room. He was glad he wouldn't have to wrestle with the covers. He settled her on the sheets, and stood watching her for a moment or two. 

She frowned, her eyes beginning to open, and he knelt, his hand unconsciously reaching to smooth over her hair. "Shh...it's okay, Veronica. Sleep, you need to sleep. It's okay." He hated to lie to her - things weren't okay, weren't going to be okay for a very long time, but he had to say something. He hoped maybe she was too tired to hear anything except the tone of his voice. At four in the morning, words lose all meaning, anyway.

Surprisingly, she relaxed almost immediately and fell back to sleep. He kept stroking her hair for another minute, wrestling with his need to slip into the bed beside her. To curl himself around her and simply hold her until the harsh morning light found them both.

It would, he argued with himself, be a kindness not to leave her alone. After all, it wasn't like Keith Mars would come rushing through the door demanding to know what the hell Logan was doing with his daughter. But, that other voice in his head answered, you know this is wrong. Don't blow it now. Now when there's a chance...

He allowed himself to kiss her forehead before taking himself back to the couch. He wouldn't let her wake up to an empty house.

He thought maybe he should try to get some sleep. Tomorrow...today was going to be an exceptionally long day, and someone should try to be focused. The idea that that someone could or would be him almost made him laugh out loud. 

4:18 and still not his favorite time.

He lay down on the couch and tried to sleep, but the events of the last 24 hours wouldn't let go. The Technicolor horror still too crisply fresh. 

He had long ago learned that sometimes the only way out was back through. He closed his eyes and let the pictures run....

 

The combination of the forced gaiety of the graduation gala and running into Aaron had been enough - more than enough - to send Logan to the sanctuary of his suite while everyone else was drinking or fucking themselves stupid. So many endings tonight. Veronica's words a few weeks ago about how after graduation they wouldn't have to ever think about each other again were echoing somewhere in the back of his mind. He resolutely refused to think about Aaron's threats about being back in control of Logan's life again.

He had turned on the tv, but left most of the lights off. He knew it was a cliche but fuck it - if he wanted to brood in the dark, he'd brood in the dark. The only question was whether his fridge had enough beer in it for really full-scale brooding.

Then his phone had chimed with that message. From the number that had "no name" but every meaning in the world. "Meet me on the roof now." Recalling the moment now he almost asked himself why he had never hesitated, why he had barely stopped to close the door of the fridge before grabbing his jacket and running up the stairs to the roof.

But then, it really wasn't such a big mystery. He knew Aaron was staying there. Knew the sort of bastard he was and knew that Veronica, along with himself, was going to be the key target of his father's vengeful rage. If he allowed himself to look a little deeper, he would have to admit that some small ridiculously naive part of him had hoped, for just a moment, that she was asking him up for an entirely different reason.

And oh fuck! The last thing he'd expected was Beaver holding a gun on Veronica, threatening to frame Aaron for her death. Even as he moved forward, frantically trying to figure out how to stop the flow of events, that nasty narrative voice that lived in the back of his head - the one that couldn't help the snide ironic commentary - was remarking that it was just fucking typical that once again he was caught in a situation involving his father, a friend and his would-be girlfriend and couldn't the scriptwriters in his life come up with something original just for fucking once? 

Crack-pow! And oh fuck! those were real bullets in the gun that Cassidy so calmly leveled at him. But Veronica! Diving behind the skylight an instinctive motion, his body leaping one way while his mind gibbered at him that he really needed to get to her.

Cassidy kept moving forward, and another Crack-pow! and now, shifting on the Mars' couch, Logan had to ask himself if Cassidy had missed on purpose. It had been very, very close, but Logan had been to the range with him, and knew what a dead shot he usually was. It was just one more question in his life he'd never be able to answer.

The scuffle that followed was a blur. He knew that Veronica must have tackled Cassidy; by the time he'd popped his head up over the barrier again, she was already being pushed to the side, and he had barely had time to hurl himself at the other guy. There was surprise-shock of the TASER and the third gunshot of the evening.

He had never seen that look in her eyes. Thought he'd seen the full range of Veronica by now. Had never been so wrong.

He knew the inferno of her temper. Knew the coldness that came over her when she was most desperately trying to protect herself. Had never known they could co-exist. Didn't know what to do except that no one with that look in their eyes should be holding a loaded weapon.

Somewhere deep inside he could hear a voice screaming. He thought it might be his own. He ignored it. This was more important. He had to get to her. He had to get that gun. Everything else could somehow be handled. He had to get to her. He had to stop her.

She was screaming accusations at Cassidy, words that flew by Logan as he inched his way toward her, until those three that ripped right through every defense he'd ever had. "He raped me!"

Logan felt his heart stop, and for just a millisecond he glanced back at Cassidy, weighing the ways in which he was going to dismember the boy, but this wasn't the time. There would be time for that later. Now there was only one priority. He had to get to her.

He would never be sure of exactly what he said to her. He dimly recalled saying that she wasn't a killer. Believing it, because he knew that if necessary he would do the killing for her. 

Then he was there, a few thousand years later, and gun was heavy in his hand, and she was clutching him as though he were actually a steady rock in an uncertain world.

He was frantically trying to figure out what to do next - call 911? Shoot Cassidy? Just get Veronica the hell out of there? - when the next act in the tragedy decided to start with no warning. Didn't he ever get an intermission?

Movement in the periphery of his vision was his only warning.

"Beaver! Don't!"

"My _name_ is Cassidy!"

It surprised him that he had breath left to speak. "Cassidy! Don't!"

"Why not?" And oh fuck why hadn't he seen that coming? Because now he had no words. If was all too close to the bone. Too close to the memory of his own moment teetering on the bridge and what words would have stopped him? He frantically dug through the hurricane of his thoughts and came up empty. Who was he to tell anyone what to live for?

"That's what I thought."

That too casual step backwards, his odd slightly apologetic, partly rueful expression as though sneaking out of study hall a little too soon. The silence broken only too quickly by the thud-blare of a car alarm. Logan stared at the space in front of him waiting for....for Cassidy to bounce back up from the trampoline that must be just below? For Ashton Kutcher to pop up yelling "punk'd!"? For...anything. Anything at all.

But reality refused to go away. As it always did. There was still Veronica, and that, that was nearly everything.

He'd been surprised when she'd first said, "Mac." His tired brain not really processing very well. The single syllable meaningless, until repeated, "Mac. Oh my god, Mac - he said she was in a better place."

His narrative voice helpfully pointed out that the night wasn't yet so bad that it couldn't get worse.

One of the advantages to insomnia, and 4 am rambling through hotel-sweet-home is that you know all the security staff. And he tipped very well, and shared the beer in his fridge, so it was the work of a moment to find Carl and convince him to let them into Cassidy's room. To convince Carl that the best thing he could do would be to round up some clothes for Mac and contact Steve at the Valet's desk to bring Logan's car around to the loading dock.

Now, in retrospect, he was able to be surprised at the speed of how things unfolded after they left the roof. Of the ease with which he made a series of decisions and Veronica let him with no more than token resistance. It made him worry all over again about what he would see in her eyes when she woke in a few hours.

He thought he'd been prepared for anything when they opened that hotel room door, but the sick relief in his stomach at finding Mac alive told him that he hadn't really been prepared for anything. 

He watched, as though from a very great distance, as Veronica rocked the sobbing Mac in her arms. Could hear only well enough to realize that Mac was telling Veronica she was physically okay, if scared out of her mind. Never did hear what Veronica told her about what had happened on the roof. 

Looking at the two of them, he knew only that he had to get them out of there. That the police would be there any second, if they weren't already, and that neither girl was in any shape to start making statements, particularly if that asshole Lamb decided to show up. Which he undoubtedly would - the man clearly needed a hobby. Or a life. Or a brain.

He pushed Carl back toward the door. "Go - find her some clothes."

"I don't..."

"Find. Her. Some. Clothes - decent ones." Damn - Carl was a decent guy, but would never be up for Mensa. "Never mind. Stay here. Outside. Don't let _anyone_ in here. Got it?" He waited for something like comprehension to dawn in Carl's eyes. He could practically feel the time slipping through his fingers - then it hit him. "Look. It's okay, Carl. There was no crime, she's fine. It was just a stupid prank that got out of hand. You won't be violating any laws. Okay?" Small nod, and Carl stepped out the door.

Logan looked back at the girls; thought maybe Mac's sobbing was quieting. He knelt next to them, careful to keep as far from Mac as he could.

"Veronica?'

She looked at him and he found himself wishing, not for the first time, that he could stop time. 

"I'm going to go get Mac some clothes, and then we need to get out of here. Okay?" Quick nod, that brain of hers he loved so much, beginning to see what he did.

He started dialing even before he was all the way out the door. 

"Logan? Not that I don't appreciate hearing from my favorite client, well, any client, but you do realize it's after midnight."

"Cliff - no time. Just listen. I'm at the Neptune Grand. Cassidy Casablancas just tried to kill Veronica, but we stopped him, but then he threw himself off the roof of the hotel, and now I need to get Veronica, me and Mac out of here before the police show up and want to talk to us all night. I'm not saying we won't make statements, just not now. Can you arrange that?"

"...."

"Cliff?" Logan really didn't have time for this.

"Um. Yes. Back up - who's Mac?"

"Cassidy's...girlfriend."

"Right - we're going to do the whole detail thing later. But you will do the _whole_ detail thing."

"Yeah - but not now. They just don't need to deal with this. Oh yeah, and Cassidy also killed Keith Mars." He heard the sharp indrawn breath on the other side.

"Did you see him—"

"No, look it's way complicated. Just, I don't want the girls to have to deal with this now."

"Can you get out of there without being seen?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"Okay, I'll call the Sheriff's department and see what I can arrange. I'm not exactly the Sheriff's favorite person, but I think if you can make, you should excuse the expression, a clean get away, I can buy you until tomorrow morning."

He got to his suite as quickly as he could; still talking to Cliff as he ripped through his drawers. He found a pair of clean sweat pants and a long-sleeved t-shirt he thought might do. He couldn't really do anything about shoes. 

"I'm moving as fast as I can."

"Which is sometimes quite impressive, Mr. Echolls." 

"Call me back when you know something."

"I live to serve, or at least I'm paid to serve."

By the time he got back to the room, Veronica had coaxed Mac into the bathroom and had clearly gotten Carl to get her some towels. She took the clothes from Logan without really looking at him. Something about her seemed smaller, fragile. All wrong.

With her usual ruthless efficiency, though, she had Mac dressed in record time. He could hear whispered exchanges, and then Veronica peeped out from the door. "Logan, give me your jacket."

"Huh?"

"Please." Her eyes signaling _don't ask, just give it_ and he never could resist those eyes.

When Mac emerged a few seconds later, wearing his jacket, her small hands clutching it closed across her chest, he realized what Veronica had been trying not to say.

At least Carl had managed to rouse Steve from his usual slightly altered and mellow state and the Xterra was waiting for them when they emerged from the loading dock. Logan could practically feel the questions Veronica wanted to ask him, but neither broke their silence. It wasn't so much Mac's presence that weighed them down, as he had the sense that they were both afraid of what might actually be said if they did start talking.

He took off from the hotel, instinctively heading toward Veronica's until he heard her quiet voice telling him to take a left where he normally would have gone right. He followed her directions blindly, not bothering to really consider where they were going. Having engineered their escape to this point, he realized that Veronica's house might actually not be the smartest place to go, but also that he didn't have any better ideas.

When she finally stopped him in front of a dark house on a quiet suburban street, and then turned to the too still Mac, he realized where they were.

"Would you mind waiting here for a moment?" Her quiet question surprised him. Where did she think he would go?

"Okay." He waited for her orders. 

She climbed out and helped Mac from the backseat. He watched them make their way up the walk, Mac stepping gingerly over the pebbles. Mac's keys must have been in her clothes; they rang the bell, and somewhere in the distance, Logan thought he heard a dog begin to bark. He thought it might also have simply been his imagination since that's what would have happened in the movies.

The porch light clicked on, and a worried looking woman answered the door - confusion and then relief as Veronica spun some kind of tale of pranks gone wrong and graduation night wackiness. He wondered idly if she even knew what she was saying at this point. Eventually Mac went inside, after hugging Veronica again, and the porch light went dark.

Veronica stood on the porch for a long moment. He had the impression that she was trying to decide what to do next. Her shoulders sagged in a strange, defeated line as she trudged back to the car. He tried to decide if his car had enough gas to get to Mexico.

He met her half-way back. No words, just a silent escort, helping her up into the seat again. He really had no idea what to do.

"Take me home." He almost didn't hear her. "Please."

The drive back to her place was completely silent. He didn't even turn on the radio, and even the ambient noises of the passing traffic seemed obscenely loud.

He pulled up to her place and killed the engine. He looked over at her, wondering what he'd see, and was only partly surprised to see her dry-eyed, staring through the windshield as though gazing into some particularly revelatory crystal ball.

"We're here." He hated to break the silence.

"Oh." She shook herself from the reverie, staring to unbuckle her seatbelt.

"Do you want...should I...?" He didn't know how to ask what he needed to ask. She simply looked at him with a face that bore no resemblance at all to her "I'd rather be spelunking face" so he unbuckled and followed her in.

Once inside, she seemed lost again. He thought she was looking for her father, and knowing that she wouldn't find him. He suddenly realized he had no idea how or why she thought Cassidy had killed Keith. Of the many horrors tonight, he hadn't actually seen...

He led her over to the couch, and pulled her back into his arms - leaning back, so she was half lying on top of him. He worried that she wasn't crying. Was she in shock? Was he? He listened to the quiet tick of a clock somewhere in the apartment. Unconsciously counting the seconds. 1...2...3...

Somewhere around 179, Veronica shifted a little. "I don't...." her voice trailed off.

He waited with a patience that surprised him. Finally she sighed. "I don't know how to deal with this."

He thought of and discarded about a dozen possible responses, and settled for moving his hand up to stroke her hair. It was an answer of sorts. Impossible to ask her what "this" she was talking about. He had so many questions: when had Cassidy raped her? When had Keith Mars died and how was Cassidy responsible? Was she sure Cassidy - Beaver? - was responsible for the bus accident? But all the questions were minefields and would have to wait. He'd bought them a little time, at least.

He let himself sink into a state of semi-consciousness, worrying over all these questions without really thinking about them.

He didn't think much time had passed when she spoke again. "I can't believe it was Beav- Cassidy. Why didn't I...?"

"Veronica - it's not your fault." He could recognize guilt from one thousand miles out.

"No, yes, I don't....I know." She sighed heavily, pulling herself a little closer. "But if I had figured it out just a little earlier." Her voice starting to choke. "My dad. Oh god, Logan. He killed my dad. He was on Woody's plane and he blew it up. I tried to call, that bastard let me try to call, but there was no answer and then...." He could feel her tears beginning to soak through his t-shirt.

Tightening his arms around her, Logan tried to sort through all the ‘he's' in her last statement, finally concluding that Keith must have been on Woody's plane, and Cassidy had somehow managed to blow it up.

Cassidy. Logan was still trying to wrap his mind around shy, dorky Cassidy as some kind of rapist and mass murderer. It simply wasn't computing. Even after the number of times he'd seen the unexpected dark side of people, he could still be surprised. He hated to think that he was oblivious about someone he'd considered a friend, but somehow...

She had started talking again. "And he raped me. At Shelly's party that night. That's the one I really don't understand. How could he have done it?" The plaintive tone in her voice ripped across him like the lash of a belt. For a moment he was back on the roof, and this time he was pushing Cassidy off the edge. 

"I...Veronica...." There were no words. 

He held her for a long time. While she cried out her grief for Keith, for what had happened to her at Shelly's party, for everything, he supposed. She never said anything, just cried, and he held her because it was all he knew to do. He was grateful that there was a box of tissues nearby, so he could wipe her face, let her blow her nose. She didn't cry beautifully - you only do that in the moves - but it was rawly honest. 

When she finally fell asleep, he was exhausted too, but it felt wrong somehow to sleep; to leave her without a watchful guardian. So he waited, and tried to reconcile all that he had learned that night - that yet another friend had betrayed him, that people were never, never what they seemed - and watched while the clock steadily counted toward 4 am.

Somewhere in those dark hours, he realized that he did remember his drunken confession to Veronica at the Alterna-Prom. Realized that he truly did believe their love was epic, but had really meant that the blood in a strictly metaphorical sense. Or at least that any more blood would be metaphorical. He thought that maybe, just maybe, it would be dangerous for the universe if they stayed together. 

Stayed? Asked the nasty voice in his head. That implies you're together now. 

It might be dangerous if they stayed together, they seemed to be a catalyst _See, Mr. Wu? I was actually awake during Chemistry classes._ for Bad Things Happening. He tried to decide when his internal voice had begun to speak in capital letters. But he really wasn't in any mood to let go. So he held her, letting her slight weight tether him until his conscience and back reminded him that beds might be a better idea.

 

When he opened his eyes, it was 6:30. Way too fucking early, but he knew, without question, that he wasn't going to be able to go back to sleep. Coffee. He desperately needed caffeine, and Keith Mars struck him as the type to have....who would have stocked his kitchen with some very decent java. Isn't that what all law enforcement officers and PIs ran on?

He moved as quietly as he could through the kitchen, finding the necessary supplies and equipment. He stared without thinking as the coffee pot gurgled and sputtered through its task. Two cups of coffee later, and he was trying to figure out what to do next. Somewhere in the back of his head he heard a voice suggesting breakfast. He wasn't sure it was such a great idea, but it was an idea, so he went with it.

The look on her face when she'd come running out of her bedroom calling for her father was something that was going to haunt him for a lot of nights. He wanted to do something, anything to take away the pain he saw crumpling her face. 

And then the world had shifted again. As he was slipping out the door, he heard Keith joking about finding him on the couch. He was too tired to even speculate how he - one of the world's lightest sleepers - had managed to sleep through Keith coming back in last night. All he knew is that he didn't belong there at that moment. 

Driving back to the hotel he realized that very shortly he wasn't going to belong there, either. And that was yet another nightmare he wanted to avoid. He thought Aaron's claim to "have the purse strings back" might be a bluff, but the details on his emancipation were a little blurry.

He was just reaching for his cell to call Cliff, when it rang. Oddly enough, it was his lawyer.

"Cliff, my man," he thought his voice sounded almost normal. "You turning psychic on me?"

"Mr. Echolls? Are we still drunk from last night?"

"Cliff - _we_ were never drunk last night. More's the pity. Why are you calling me?"

"There's been...a development."

"Yeah - did you hear that Keith Mars is actually alive?"

There was an odd pause. "Veronica's dad is okay?"

"Yeah - he showed up this morning."

Another pause with some faint mumbling. Logan thought he caught the word "irony."

"Cliff, my man. You're really going to have to speak up, I can't hear you over this glorious Neptune morning."

"Logan? Are you driving?"

"Yeah - it's California. It's what we do."

"Pull over."

"What?"

"No, seriously - I have some news, but you shouldn't be driving when I tell you."

"Cliff? You're worrying me. You make it sound like something serious. What is it? Is Trina suing some producer again claiming that she is owed a part?"

"Pull over."

"Okay, okay." He piloted the car into the parking lot of the nearest 7-11. "I'm parked. What is it?"

"Logan. Your father's dead."

There was a strange buzzing in his ears. He tried to process the words, but they really didn't connect to anything that made sense.

"Logan?"

"I'm here." He was, wasn't he? "What happened?"

"We don't know. They found his body in his hotel room. He was shot."

"Good." The response out before he could stop it. "Oh? Was that out loud?" A lifetime of sarcasm was finally paying off.

"Look, I'm your lawyer, not your therapist. It's not up to me to validate your feelings. Just give you legal advice." But Cliff's voice was surprisingly kind. "You need to get to the Sheriff's station as soon as possible. They need you to i.d. the body, and they're more anxious to talk to you than ever."

"Yeah. Okay. I'll go there now."

Staring down at Aaron's body, he really hadn't known what to think. It was very clearly him, so he was able to pass this test - successfully identify the body of the man who had been his father, his tormentor, his...he didn't even know what to call him. 

But that whole "what next?" question was something else entirely. It occurred to him that he was truly an orphan now. He wasn't sure it was going to make that much of a difference. He thought he should call Trina and then realized he really had no idea how to reach her. Or what, exactly, he would say to her.

He called Veronica instead.

 

FIN

**Author's Note:**

> _Music playing over end credits: "Wee Small Hours" - Frank Sinatra ___
> 
>  
> 
> __  
> _In the wee small hours of the morning_  
>  When the whole wide world is fast asleep  
> You lie awake and think about the girl  
> And never ever think of counting sheep...
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> ____**End Credits**  
>  **Story:** Angstville and VivWiley  
>  **Screenplay** : VivWiley  
>  **Editor and Creative Consultant:** Angstville  
>  **Kraft Services:** Trader Joe's and Viv's Mom  
>  **Wardrobe and Costume Designer:** Angstville  
>  **Executive Producers:** Whisper, Cleo and Mocha


End file.
